The Alpha Test

**ELIRYA**

The attendant's hand was still on my shoulder.

"The king sends for you."

I followed him down the corridor and told myself to breathe and thought about Aaron.

---

Three days ago.

Three days since the throne room. Since Kharzak had looked down that line of eight women and said

"this one"

Made me feel like there was more to his decision and it's not something that I would want to figure out.

I hadn't slept properly since.

I needed to prepare myself for anything that would come next.

Aaron was the only idea I had, one of the palace eunuchs. Still alive after years in this place.

That last part mattered most.

---

He looked up when I knocked.

"You." His eyes moved over me once. "The girl new human slave."

"Yes." I stepped inside. Set the tray down. "I wanted to speak with you."

"Why?"

"I need your help." I almost cried. "I'm scared already for myself. I don't have anyone here to help protect me nor do I have a family."

Aaron set down what he was holding and studied me.

"Most servants here fight for his attention," he said slowly. "And you come to me."

"Because you're seem to be a good person. You've been here longer than anyone."

Silence.

"What exactly are you asking?"

I kept my eyes on the floor.

"Protection. A reason to be left alone." A breath. "If you were willing — if it kept me alive — I would marry you."

Aaron didn't move for three full seconds.

Then he turned to the servant beside him and said in a stunned voice —

"Did you hear that? She would marry me. A Eunuch"

He stopped, it didn't make sense at all to him.

He should be excited but no he was worried about what this particular help might cost him

Because the room atmosphere changed.

I felt it before I understood it — that shift in the air, the specific silence of people who have just registered something behind them.

I turned.

And bowed. Fast. Deep.

---

Kharzak stood in the doorway.

Not hidden. Not waiting. Simply there — the way he was always simply there, like the room had rearranged itself around his arrival without asking permission.

His eyes moved from Aaron to me.

Aaron's mouth was still slightly open.

"She would marry you," Kharzak said. Flat. Not a question.

Aaron closed his mouth. Swallowed. "My king— I— she came to me, I did not—"

"I heard." He looked at me. "For protection."

At that moment I wanted to ground to open and swallow me whole.

Don't explain. Don't justify. Just get through this.

I figured this might be the best decision.

"Yes, my king," I said.

His eyes stayed on me for a long moment.

Nothing in his expression. Not anger. Not amusement. Just that absolute, unhurried attention that made every small decision I had ever made feel suddenly visible.

"We will see how far this protection takes you." Quiet. Dark underneath.

"Stand. Don't speak further."

I stood up slowly and before I could rise properly he had left.

The room didn't breathe until his footsteps faded down the corridor.

---

I made it back to my quarters before my legs gave out.

Sat on the floor. Didn't trust the cot.

He arrived at the end of it.

He heard enough.

He let me walk away.

I pressed my back to the wall and told myself that was enough.

Today, walking away was enough.

That was three days ago.

---

Now the attendant stopped outside the upper corridor door and stepped aside.

No knock. No announcement.

Fourteenth torch from the east wing. I had counted without meaning to.

He already knew, I realised. When the summons came — he already knew about Aaron. About the proposal. About all of it.

He had known for three days.

And he had waited.

We will see how far Eunuch protection takes you.

I pushed the door open and went in.

kharzak

I turned the corner as Aaron's voice carried down the corridor.

"Did you hear that?" Stunned. Almost a whisper. "She would marry me. A eunuch."

I walked in.

Silence fell immediately.

The girl turned and bowed before she even saw my face.

She knew better.

Aaron stumbled backward, mouth still open, the words dying somewhere in his throat. The servant beside him pressed himself against the wall.

I looked at the girl.

Still bowed. Hands at her sides. Not gripping anything. Not shaking visibly.

Just — waiting.

"She would marry you," I said.

Aaron found his voice. Barely. "My king — I — she came to me, I did not —"

"I heard."

I looked at her.

She didn't look up. Didn't fill the silence with explanation or apology.

Just stayed exactly where she was.

"For protection," I said.

"Yes, my king."

One answer. Nothing attached to it.No fear spilling into her voice even though I could see it in the line of her shoulders.

A human girl.

In a palace where women competed for my attention like starving animals — this one had walked to a eunuch and offered herself in marriage.

Not for favor. Not for position.

For protection.

Only survival.

I let the silence sit for a moment.

Watched her hold it without breaking.

"We will see how far this protection takes you." I let it land where it needed to land. "Stand. Don't speak further."

She rose slowly.

I left before she was fully upright.

---

Torvak fell into step beside me in the outer corridor.

He had been nearby. He always was.

"The girl," he said.

"Yes what about her?"

"She approached Aaron before your summons came through."

"I know that too."

He was quiet for a moment. The kind of quiet that meant he had something to say and was deciding whether to say it.

"She's not what she's presenting herself as," he said finally.

"No."

"And you're not concerned."

I didn't answer that.

Torvak knew better than to push.

---

That night I stood at the window.

The courtyard below ran its usual patrol. Wolves at the gate. Soldiers at the inner wall. The machinery of my empire moving exactly as it should.

I thought about what she had done.

Not the marriage proposal — that was desperation, readable, ordinary in its own way. Fear made people reach for whatever was closest.

What stayed with me was the other part.

She had looked at this palace — at the women performing and clawing and positioning themselves — and decided that invisibility was worth more than proximity to power.

In twenty years of conquest I had never encountered that calculation from a human.

They always wanted something from me.

Position. Safety through favour. Access.

She wanted access to a eunuch.

Because he was still alive.

I turned from the window.

Either she was the most genuinely terrified human I had encountered.

Or she was the most intelligent one.

Both were worth understanding.

I sat at the map table.

The northern border. Draven's eastern flank. A traitor is still somewhere inside my palace.

Real problems. Significant ones.

I went back to work.

We will see how far this protection takes you.

The words had been a warning.

They were also, I realised, a promise.